Custom Christmas Coffee Cups

"Grandpa Cy- a man that worked so hard at being Dad,
he got promoted to Grandpa." 

Here's another of our homemade Christmas presents from 2012. Custom Christmas Coffee Cups. (You should pin this for next year. Just saying, he he) This one had a decently large amount of instant sentimental value to everyone that received one. We even saw a few happy tears from a recipient, which was one of  best feelings that I experienced this Christmas.

Joe and I decorated one side of each cup and Logan decorated the other side. Logan's side is covered in scribbles, none the less, I know his craftsmanship is what gives this gift it's value.

Making these mugs is so simple, but it was not quite what we expected.

To decorate a coffee mug, or any piece of ceramic glassware, just use Sharpie markers and then bake  it for 30 minutes at 350. It sounds really easy, right? Like the only challenge is deciding what to put on your dish of choice, right? We did learn a few lessons along the way...

Noni \nah-nee\ (n):
A woman with a garden of love
growing in her heart

1. Yellow turns our brown and looks disgusting.

2. Red, orange, and green will wear off the most quickly.

3. Pretty much, that means only use black or blue.

5. They are NOT dish washer proof, not even abrasive-side-of-the-sponge proof.

5. Basically, they're only good for sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

It seems to me that the ink probably would have stuck around just as long if we hadn't bothered to bake the mugs. I'm not certain, but the projects many failures may have been because our ancient oven varies  in temperature rather than maintaining the 350 that I requested from it.

I explained to everyone, after they opened their cups, that they had to choose whether the functionality of the cup or the decorative scribblings of an 18 month old were more important to them (because, if you didn't catch on, the words are going to wash off after a few uses). Everyone still enjoyed the thoughtfulness and the sentimental value of their new decorative mugs. Not to mention we had a lot of fun making them, especially Logan :)

Adult Hot Chocolate

Now that Christmas is behind us I can finally share all my DIY Christmas present projects from this year! Go ahead, pin this for next year :)

For our co-workers Joe and I put together these Adult Hot Chocolate kits. The Christmas season is very busy and stressful for us at work, so we came bearing the gift of holiday stress relief. In each mason jar is a serving of Swiss Miss powdered hot chocolate mix, a handful of marshmallows, and small bottle of a complimenting liquor.


I got the miniature bottles of liquor at the local liquor store, Noonan's. We bought an assortment of mint chocolate, mocha, and caramel liquors. The quilted mason jars were at Kroger's and, conveniently, they came with those cute labels that I filled in with 'Merry Christmas!' I attached the little bottles of liquor with a simple piece of red yarn. The final touch, my homemade label:

Cute, right?

Stay tuned to hear about our salt dough ornaments, and hand decorated Christmas coffee mugs!

I also made custom decorated candles using the same method I used to make the memorial candles I already posted about. You can read about them here. I ended up making 9 more sets of memorial candles for other family, and 6 more candles as Christmas presents.